When I was a young university student, I traveled to Rome one steamy summer. My meager budget allowed for a breakfast consisting of a huge juicy summer peach, and a bitter espresso. Before the Roman heat rose to its full oppressive glory, I’d start each day with this refreshing bittersweet.
Time Travel 20 years forward:
A frigid, snowy February Toronto Sunday, one of the bitterest days in many years, and I’m sitting in a huge church listening to a great Dixieland band playing jazz New Orleans style.
20 years back:
Rome, fuzzy orange-golden mouth-watering summer peach
20 years forward:
A handsome someone strumming on the banjo.
Romance, sensation, appetite, discovery ….
All the way home on the subway, the words and melody for “You’re My Summer Peach” kept strumming in my inner ear.
They traveled out of my head to the scrap paper on
which I scribbled in bright red ink.
Across time, across an ocean, heat-waved evaporating winter woes.
A song was born.
Donna Greenberg 